[Silly]

I'm glad I found this more balanced and reasoned perspective before I jumped on the Hate-Huck bandwagon following the murder of four police officers.

Those funny things called FACTS are actually quite important.

[MortMan]

I despise Huck as a politician, and it has absolutely NOTHING to do with Clemmons. My parents lived in Arkansas after the “Sun God” (Clinton) left Huck in charge. Huck is a nanny-stater (read: “social socialist”) who believes that morality somehow requires the transfer of tax money from payers to grifters.

I’m also quite aware that Huck was the foil used to elevate McCain in 2008.

The spin being presented on Clemmons is that nobody objected - but other people involved back then (on a much more intrinsic level) have disputed this.

Just my $.02, of course.

[Safrguns]

I originally bought in to the Huck flap that he had pardoned a murderer. Apparently, that is not true.

I heard his interview with Sean Hannity about this, and he didn’t sound like a man with something to hide to me.

It was very easy to believe the initial reports... probably because about the same time, we had Newtered GinGrinch recently endorsing an ultra liberal pro-abortion candidate for congress... I guess once you find one witch, its far too easy to find a coven of them.

Huckabee for president? hell no... but this jury is still out on the RINO charge.

[commish]

Those funny things called FACTS are actually quite important.

You are correct, and the only FACT THAT MATTERS is this : If Mike Huckabee does not do the ORIGINAL COMMUTATION of Clemmon's sentence, NONE of the subsequent actions would have occured. Clemmon's would still be rotting in an Arkansas jail and 4 Washington Policemen would be alive and with thier families.

THAT is the only FACT that matters.

Nice try to whitewash Huckabee's culpability, but the FACT is his action consequently led to 4 men losing thier life. PERIOD!

[sig226]

A word to those who want to replay the last election:

We LOST in 2008. It's time to move forward instead.

Huckabee, Giuliani, Romney, McCain, Palin, Hunter, Tancredo, and Thompson were the large parts of the loss.

LOOK AHEAD.

We've got two more years to plan, and then choose platforms and candidates before the next presidential election is serious.

[DTogo]

Huckabee should stay on TV and out of public office. No more Big Govt “compassionate Conservative” RINOs who pander to the Religious Right.

[CajunConservative]

This isn’t the only case though showing his poor judgment. Other felons he thought found Jesus got out and went on to rape and murder again. This case highlights the problem of the broken “justice” system.

[Lucky2]

I’ve never been a Huck lover and feel that his judgement was impared. However with that said, the scum-bag liberals who run the state of Washington have more blood on their hands than Huck. Some day, people are going to wake up and elect the right people not the slime that currently runs the state of WA. How many more Clemmons types are running loose? Hundreds!

[Cymbaline]

1. That commutation did not pardon, declare innocent or acquit Clemmons of his wrong doing.

No, it just let him out to commit more crimes.

2. Clemmons remained on parole following his commutation and when he violated that parole he was brought in for those crimes. (At this point in time, Huckabee’s involvement with Clemmons was over.)

He turned a violent criminal loose on society.  His involvement will never be over.

3. It was prosecutorial malfeasance that THEN allowed Clemmons to walk free, NOT a Huckabee commutation.

If he was still in prison, there would have been no prosecutorial malfeasance.

4. Sometime after that incident Clemmons moves to Washington State, and by all signs possible, lives the life of a model citizen.

That's a model citizen?  Wow, you must have pretty low standards.

5. After that 5-6 year stretch of time Clemmons begins to have skirmishes with Washington State authorities.

Which wouldn't have been possible if Huck hadn't let him out of prison.

6. In Washington State there is a 3 strike law. Which means that when accumulating serious offenses in that state, the third time will incur automatic sentencing that can not be altered.

Let's hope Arkansas doesn't have a governor like Huck.

7. The child-rape Clemmons was most recently charged with was considered his 3rd strike IN WASHINGTON.

Which wouldn't have happened if he was still in prison IN ARKANSAS.

[Mr. Silverback]

Yep, it sure looks like Huck wasn’t the problem here.

Still won’t vote for him though. RINOs with southern accents and a rock band are still RINOs.

[Monkey Face]

In order to hate Huckabee, I would have to expend energy on the emotion. He isn’t worth my time.

[stockpirate]

Clemmons had a getaway driver in the police shootings. He was a pardoned double murderer that he met in jail that Huck also pardoned.

I didn’t like Huck before this happened, he reminds me of a carnival barker snake oil salesman. Not to give snake oil salesmen a bad name.

[sitetest]

“Yes Gov. Huckabee commuted a 100+ year sentence for a person who was a minor when he committed a series of burglaries. He commuted it all the way down to 40 years.”

This is disingenuous. Gov. Huckabee commuted the 100+ year sentence down to 47 years, 5 months and 19 days, so that Mr. Clemmons then became eligible for parole the day of the commutation, after having served roughly only 11 years.

The practical effect of Gov. Huckabee’s action was to enable Mr. Clemmons to go free after 11 years of incarceration for some very serious felonies.

As well, some of the things for which he WASN'T prosecuted are in some ways scarier than the things for which he was sent away, such as [from wikipedia]:

- Clemmons was accused multiple times of displaying violence during court appearances. On one occassion, Clemmons dismantled a metal door stop and hid it in his sock to use as a weapon;

- One another instance, Clemmons took a lock from his holding cell and threw it at a bailiff, but missed and accidentally hit his mother instead;

- Clemmons was once accused of reaching for a guard’s pistol while being transported to court;

- During one trial, he was shackled in leg irons and seated next to a uniformed officer because the presiding judge ordered extra security, claiming Clemmons had threatened him.

If I'd have been governor, I may have reduced the sentence from 108 years, too. But making this very dangerous person serve less than 30 or 40 years was a literally fatal error in judgment.

This wasn't the sort of person to be let out of prison much before his 60th or 70th birthday. One might argue that this wasn't the sort of person to be released from prison while he still drew breath.

Gov. Huckabee’s judgment in this case was way beyond awful. It is a legitimate issue by which to evaluate his potential candidacy for president. I'm not sure that I'd disqualify him on this alone, but it wouldn't take much beyond this for me to consider him entirely unfit to be president.

[pissant]

I like Romney even less than Huck, and I still blame Huck. Ask him about Wayne Dumond too.

[trisham]

He’s an arrogant nanny-stater.

[HamiltonJay]

“Clemmons remained on parole following his commutation and when he violated that parole he was brought in for those crimes. (At this point in time, Huckabee’s involvement with Clemmons was over.)”

Um.. had he not had his sentence commuted he would not have been out in the general public to commit those crimes.

I am no fan of Romney or Huck, and I despise both of them and find it pitiable that they are even being discusses ad presidential hopefuls.

Now with that said, on my list of greivances against Huck, communiting this guys sentence is way way way down the list.

However since you wish to talk facts, the Fact on this matter remain, the Governor commuted his sentence, and let him out of prison, something that clearly should not have been done. There was no claim of misjustice in his trial or even controversy over whether he did the deeds he was convicted for. As such the only reason for commutation of this animals sentence was Huck’s own personal misplaced “compassion”.. or more importantly, what he believed was “compassion”.

Sorry, those are the Facts in this case.

And that’s from someone with no love for Romney or Huck.

[Republic of Texas]

I don’t hate Huck, he’s just not a Conservative, and therefore not worth my time.

[RichInOC]

If the gov hadn’t commuted Maurice Clemmon’s sentence, Clemmons would most likely still be a guest of the State of Arkansas. And those cops would most likely still be alive right now.

This isn’t anything personal against Mike Huckabee. Having something like this on one’s record would be a problem for any other Republican governor, as far as I’m concerned. Yes, even Sarah Palin. Even bigger if it were the second clemency gone wrong, with the potential of more.

That said, I lived through eight years of a president from Hope, Arkansas who hated to take responsibility for his actions. Been there, done that. I have absolutely no desire to go through any more.

Governor, here’s your sign:

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks Silly.

[Revolting cat!]

Silly.

[NormsRevenge]

Plenty of ‘blame’ (if that is the correct word) to go around no matter how you comb the piles off acts, sadly, Huck’s signature was on the bottom of over 1000 requests for commutations and pardons... some felt he was soft on criminals while claiming to be hard on crime.

In politics, there used to be a ‘3 strikes’ rule too... now it is rarely applied.. unless your fate is to have an R by your name on the ballot. Nothing new to see careers hoisted on their own petard.

I’m not a Huck hater , hate saps the soul of serenity in the midst of chaos, the fact he is also a Rino in guise of conservative values (can he pass the 7 of 10 litmus test?), should not sway opinion either but what other measuring sticks do we have?

Thanks for posting it.

—

Mike Huckabee’s 10 Most-Publicized Sentence Commutations
http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/dailyweekly/2009/12/mike_huckabees_10_most-publici.php